


Architect of Fate

by Unoriginality



Series: Pandora's Universe [5]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Mythology abuse, hey we find out what was going on back there, only not, yeah yeah I know I'm procrastinating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 13:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unoriginality/pseuds/Unoriginality
Summary: Homunculii had only one weakness. Shadows were chased away by the light. They could not stand up to the original person. But that was more than just literally, and nobody seemed to realize that. If the alchemist who created them denied them, turned them away and didn't allow them to be who they were created to be...That was a pain humans would never know.





	Architect of Fate

Alchemists were not gods.

People said that, they knew that, and they understood it, for the most part. Sometimes some would get fooled into thinking an alchemist could perform miracles, because they did not understand the science they _were_ able to accomplish, but they were inevitably left disappointed. Alchemists were human beings, flawed, mortal, and sometimes, just as helpless as everyone else.

Alchemists were not gods, nor were they demons. They were simply human.

The sharp and piercing sound of the phone ringing pulled Sloth from her tedious work of handling the führer's massive amounts of paperwork and she looked at the telephone a moment before setting her pen down and picking it up. "Führer Bradley's office, Captain Douglas speaking."

"Captain, this is Captain Marsters. I've just been informed that Colonel Elric has just arrived at the train station and will be here shortly."

What humans did not understand, however, was that for homunculii, some alchemists were indeed gods. For the living incarnations of sin, alchemists were the creators, the deciders of fate, and sometimes, the ones that cut their threads. 

Humans were lucky. They were born blank slates, shaped only by the people surrounding them and their environment, but otherwise free to choose who they wanted to be.

Homunculii were not so lucky.

Something inside Sloth's slow-beating heart picked up at the news, but it did not show, did not break the chiseled perfection of her cold and detached expression. "Thank you, Captain. I will inform the führer at once."

Homunculii were created beings, born from science, from the mind and will of a human being. They were created to _be_ someone, someone who had once existed. If the alchemist was strong enough, the mind of that lost person was impressed on the homunculus, damning them for all of their miserable, nigh-immortal life to forever try to be someone they were not. They were shadows, shapes and outlines of the lost light, but they were not the light.

To a homunculus, the alchemist that had created it was Clotho.

To Sloth, her Clotho, her weaver, her thread spinner, was a desperate young boy who had turned his eyes inward, and stared into an abyss darker than the one she'd been born from.

The legs of her chair scraped loudly against the floor as she stood up and walked across the expansive room to Bradley's office. "Edward Elric is here, sir," she said once her knock on the door was answered.

Bradley looked up at her from his tea and report that he was looking at. "Oh? Wonderful. Thank you, Captain."

Lachesis. The one that determined the length of the thread, but more than that, Lachesis determined the destiny, the purpose. An alchemist did that, too. Dante had created Bradley to rule the military for her. And even here, where they could not be seen or heard by the outside world, they were not Pride and Sloth. He was military.

Sloth was not military. Sloth was created to be a mother.

Bradley studied her. "You remember your part, Captain?"

Atropos, the one who held the shears. Who determined when the end came.

Homunculii had only one weakness. Shadows were chased away by the light. They could not stand up to the original person. But that was more than just literally, and nobody seemed to realize that. If the alchemist who created them denied them, turned them away and didn't allow them to be who they were created to be...

That was a pain humans would never know.

Sloth kept her face carefully neutral, cold and apathetic despite the way her heart cried and pounded loudly her chest, desperately longing to be reunited with her son. He'd created her, her Clotho, to be his mother, and her heart knew him, before her mind could even register more than images and ideas rather than words and thoughts, and her heart had suffered watching her son screaming and in pain and then taken away before her. 

She'd tried to reach him, tried to comfort him, to bind his wounds and dry his eyes but she hadn't been able to move, still not complete, still not fully formed, and in that helpless state, she'd watched him nearly die, and then get taken away from her, taken out of her grasp by a stranger who'd entered her house and taken her only child left to her.

She hadn't seen her son since that day.

All she could do for now was wait quietly, patiently, in the ranks of the military, watching him from somewhere distant, through reports and rumors, as he drove himself further and further into that abyss, hurting and desperate and alone.

And it broke her heart.

"Yes, sir."

She would be stepping back out, to pretend to be working on filing something in the outer office, standing where her back would be to Edward. She couldn't be seen by him yet, he might fall apart, panic, run. He was unstable, even Sloth knew that, from looking over the reports on his activities. If he saw her before Bradley could ease him into the waters, she might lose him. They all might lose their chance at regaining their humanity, a humanity she was certain that Edward help them obtain.

"And what will you do if he rejects you?" Bradley asked, and she knew what answer he was fishing for. He was making sure that Dante's promises of humanity would keep her at Dante's side, should Edward decide to deny her the motherhood he'd created her for.

She bowed her head. "I will continue to seek my humanity."

She truly wondered if any promise to become human and regain Trisha Elric's soul would be enough to keep her from self-destructing from the pain of rejection.

Until she saw Edward Elric again, Sloth was in limbo, walking on a razor's edge, trapped somewhere between promised life and the death she'd been pulled from. Until then, she was waiting. Waiting to see if he would accept her as a mother, even if she were not truly the deceased Trisha Elric, waiting to see what he'd measured her thread, if he would pull out the abhorred shears and cut her off, leaving her in a dark sort of living death, a suspended animation, a walking corpse unable to be anybody but who she was denied the name of.

Until her Judgment Day, she was waiting.

Waiting for her humanity.


End file.
